Monthly Archives: July 2011

Western Cowgirl Sweet 16 Birthday Cake! YEEHAW!!!!

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I love doing Sweet 16 cakes.  Especially when a girl ventures out of the status quo, and does something unique and off-beat!  And I have to say this is one of those cakes!

I mean don’t get me wrong, I love the current trend of animal prints and bright colors (i.e. zebra stripes and hot pink), but it’s getting difficult to come up with new and creative ways to make those cakes!  Now I will be honest, when I first saw the cake that my client wanted, with it’s country-western cowboy design, I wasn’t too thrilled.  But like I do most of the time when a client brings me a picture of a cake that they found online, I tweaked it and changed it to make it my own 🙂  The more I worked on this cake design, the more I fell in love with it.

Now the original design had the three tiers of denim, red bandana, black and white cow hide.  My client really wanted to have her daughter’s name incorporated into the cake somehow.  Well, I felt like I had an epiphany.  What better way to display someone’s name on a Country-western birthday cake, then with a big, ol’ belt buckle!!!  I was so excited.  I didn’t even tell my client because I wanted to see the look on her face when she saw my work of pure genius! 😉  Here’s the sketch of Jayde’s cake.

Western Cowgirl birthday cake sketch

The sketch of Jayde's Cowgirl birthday cake

The actual Texas style cake came out even more spectacularly than the sketch!  And of course the cake tasted just as good as it looked.  The flavors were chocolate butter cake with chocolate and vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  I always love a girl who loves chocolate!  Yeehaw!!!

Cowgirl Western Sweet 16 birthday cake

Jayde's Cowgirl 16th birthday cake

Denim tier western 16th birthday cake

Denim details with gumpaste daisies and rope 16

Gumpaste belt buckle western 16th birthday cake

My favorite part! Jayde's belt buckle!!!

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Flaming Phoenix Birthday Cake!

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I think it’s rather apropos to feature a phoenix (the bird, not the city) cake on the weekend of the opening of the final Harry Potter movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  You know since Dumbledore had a phoenix…..  You know…..Fawkes……  You know what…. I’m kind of a dork!  Oh well, I’m ok with that!  🙂

My dear friend Erica has a beautiful, quirky daughter named Emma.  Emma has been sketching and dreaming about her birthday cake since I made her brother a Mini Cooper cake for his 7th birthday back in January.  That’s 7 months, people!  And when you’re turning 11, that’s almost an eternity to wait for your very own custom birthday cake.

Originally, the cake was supposed to be for both Emma and her brother Avery since their birthdays are so close together.  But Emma sweet talked (or threatened, I’m not sure which) her brother into letting her have creative license with the cake.  Have I mentioned how much I love Emma?!  I’d totally steal her if her parents would let me!  So she wanted either a dragon cake or a phoenix cake.  She and her mom perused Google and found a picture of a cake that they liked, and I tweaked it to make it my own. 🙂   Not to toot my own horn, but the resulting cake came out even better than I’d envisioned it!  I love it when that happens.  😀

Emma enjoyed her brother’s triple chocolate cake so much, that she wanted that flavor, too!  So she got a triple chocolate birthday cake with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  The phoenix is made of gumpaste and the feathers and plumage are made of fondant.

Phoenix firebird birthday cake

Phoenix birthday cake!

Back of phoenix birthday cake

Back view of the phoenix's feathers

Close up of Phoenix

Close up view of the phoenix

Oh Brother! Two Crazy Custom Birthday Cakes!!!

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This is a warning.  The birthday cakes you are about to see came from the brains of babes.  They’re a little out-there, a little odd, even a little schizophrenic! 😉 But most of all these babies were CUSTOM!!!

A couple of weeks ago I met with a new friend of mine, the lovely Mrs. Kimberly Hobbs, owner of Cafe Liquid in Niceville Florida,  at [gasp] Starbucks.  We were meeting to discuss birthday cakes for both of her sons, J who’s 11 and C who’s 7, and boy-oh-boy, do these boys know what they like, well except for Mr. C– he likes EVERYTHING!!!

J was a little more organized.  He wanted to incorporate three of his favorite interests:  the University of Alabama, Tae kwon do (he has a camo belt), and reading, specifically his 3 favorite books– Lord of the Rings, How to Train Your Dragon (I didn’t realize that was a book! Lol), and The 39 Clues.  So I thought a cake with sculpted books for a base with a 2nd tier featuring Alabama and Tae kwon do would be pretty easy to accomplish without looking too crazy.  With a plan in mind for a Alabama/Tae kwon do/book enthusiast cake, I turned to hear what C wanted.

But Mr. C, he wanted a little bit of everything on his cake.  First, he also wanted to incorporate Tae kwon do (he too has a camo belt), along with Super Mario Brothers, How to Train your Dragon, and Lego Star Wars….. whew!  Oh and when his brother said University of Alabama, Little C started telling me what sports team he wanted, too!  I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t figure out how to put all that stuff on one cake without it landing me on Cake Wrecks!  So I got C to narrow it down to a figure of Toothless in Mario Land wearing a Tae kwon do belt.  And yes, I do know how crazy it sounds, but the resulting Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon)/Super Mario Brothers cake was adorable!  🙂

These boys also knew exactly what they wanted when it came to the flavors of their cakes.  Since they were both getting 2 tier cakes, they wanted a different flavor for each tier.  C wanted triple chocolate and vanilla, and J, who polled his friends LOL, wanted triple chocolate and strawberry.  Since there was an issue with red dye allergy, I made a fresh strawberry cake with a strawberry buttercream filling!  YUM!

In the end, I loved the cakes.  They were so original, and really represented each boy so well.  I hope they loved them as much as I loved making them!

tae kwon do alabama books birthday cake

Custom Tae kwon do, Alabama, and book enthusiast birthday cake

Alabama books birthday cake

The "ring" was from the book "The Lord of the Rings"

Close up of books birthday cake

A close up of the sculpted "books"

Toothless in Mario land birthday cake

Toothless with his Tae kwon do belt in Mario Land birthday cake

Toothless cake close up

Close up of sculpted Toothless

Aerial shot of Toothless Mario Land cake

Aerial shot of Toothless cake 🙂

Sweet as a Daisy Wedding Cake!

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Do you remember that thing in the 80s “Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon” or whatever it was called. 😛 Lol.  Well this cake was kind of like that.  Let me explain…

Several months ago a sweet girl, named Ashlee, contacted me about making her wedding cake, so we set up a time to meet.  Before the first meeting, I already started learning how “connected” I was to this bride.  First of all, her father has been playing tennis with my husband for the past 8 years!  Then I found out that she was the student teacher in the class of little E, whose mother is one of my dearest friends and for whom I made a 3D Mini Cooper birthday cake last year.  They were both very excited for me to make her wedding cake!

So I already felt like I knew Ashlee when we met to discuss her wedding cake.  She had been looking at the wedding cakes that I’d already made and really liked the “Carol”, but she wanted to tweak it to make it custom to her wedding, which I love to do!  So we decided to forgo the monochromatic, white-on-white and instead incorporate her colors of yellow and green.  We also went with a daisy instead of the primrose flowers.  The sketch turned out perfectly and we were both thrilled with the promise of new and beautiful cake for her wedding.

Now you’re probably wondering why I mentioned the Kevin Bacon thing when there were only 2 connections between myself and Ashlee and that isn’t anything to get excited over.  Well, if those were the only 2, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.  But when a comment thread broke out on FB over the picture of Carol’s wedding cake, I just had to laugh.  Ashlee commented that she didn’t realize that this cake, which she’d wanted her own wedding cake to be patterned after, was Carol’s.  That’s right Carol and Ashlee know each other!  Then a few weeks later after I’d posted pictures of Ciara’s wedding cake the same thing happened again!  Ashlee also knows Ciara! Lol.  It’s like I was destined to make Ashlee’s cake.

daisy yellow and green wedding cake

The sketch of Ashlee's yellow daisy wedding cake.

I got really excited when Ashlee and I started talking about flavors.  You see, I love it when a bride steps out of the box with the flavor of her wedding cake.  Most just want vanilla, but not Ashlee.  When she heard about my lemon-berry cake, she got very excited.  She thought the lemon cake with raspberry preserves filling and vanilla buttercream would be perfect for her July wedding in Bluewater Bay, FL.  I couldn’t agree more.  I also pointed out that the cake would look lovely when it was cut, because it would match her color scheme.  🙂

When it was all said and done, I felt like I knew Ashlee and that I was meant to make her wedding cake.  I often feel like my bride’s are all my long-lost sisters.  And that was definitely true of Ashlee!  I wish her and her new husband Kevin many, many MANY years of happiness and joy in their marriage!

yellow daisy and green scroll wedding cake

Ashlee's beautiful yellow daisy wedding cake 🙂

Yellow daisy wedding cake with green scroll accents

Detail view of Ashlee's yellow and green wedding cake

Happy Birthday America! (Fourth of July Cake)

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As you’re celebrating today, whether with fireworks, food or friends, don’t forget those fight to keep our country free!

I was asked to make a cake for the brother of a dear childhood friend of mine.  His family was bidding him a fond farewell as he joined the US Air Force.  They actually through a going away party for him on Memorial day and asked me to make a patriotic red, white and blue cake to mark the occasion.  Growing up beside Eglin Air Force base I’ve always felt a connection to the military even though my family is civilian.  As an adult I have an even greater connection, since my sister married an Airman.  So I was thrilled to get the opportunity to make a beautiful cake for this sweet family.

Even though the cake was made on Memorial day, I thought today would be a great day to share it!  So I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday.  Enjoy your family, friends, some good food, and definitely your freedom!  Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Patriotic 4th of July going away cake, red white and blue cake

Patriotic 4th of July cake!

I’ll be enjoying a picnic and some fireworks on the water in Niceville, FL with my family and friends.  What are your plans for celebrating today?